A frequent flyer's collection of trip diaries

First new country of 2016

ABOVE: Arriving at the
outer anchorage point for Kotor

Royal Princess arrived at her anchorage point off Kotor,
Montenegro at 7am. We took some photos of the spectacular location,
although the weather was not looking very promising at this stage. The
ship had reached this point by sailing through the Gulf of Kotor
(sometimes called 'the southernmost fjord in Europe', although
technically it isn't a fjord at all)
while the vast majority of the people on board, including ourselves,
were still in the land of Nod. Although it wasn't obvious to a
first-time visitor, we were not actually in the planned position.
The captain made an announcement explaining that, of the two
available anchorage points, we were at the outer one, rather than the
intended inner one. This was for safety reasons, given the very
strong winds blowing down from the mountains and the size of
Royal Princess. We had invited another, smaller ship to take
the prime spot, which now meant a two-mile run for our tenders.

Although I had yet to step ashore, the ship
had brought me to my first new country of 2016. A remnant of the
former Yugoslavia, Montenegro ('black mountain' in Italian) became a sovereign state as
recently as
2006, when it declared independence from Serbia. With just 620,000
people, it is one of the smallest countries in Europe - in
population terms just above Luxembourg, although considerably larger
in physical size. Montenegro has been invited to join NATO
and is negotiating to become a member of the European Union. It
already uses the Euro as its currency, by unilateral adoption.

Bruce and I had breakfast in the ship's International
Café, and after a brief interlude in the cabin to get organised,
we took a shore-based tender to town. We were both wearing light rain
jackets as our outer layer, which offered additional protection
against the strong wind. On arrival, it was just a few steps from the tender landing
pier to the gate of the walled old town of this venerable and beautiful Adriatic port, a UNESCO World Heritage
Site. We strolled through a maze of narrow alleys and attractive
little squares, which all became progressively busier as time
passed. Our walk included a couple of sections on the walls
themselves, presenting a pleasingly different viewpoint.

ABOVE: St Tryphon's
Cathedral

As is often the case in urban sightseeing, some of the most historic
and interesting buildings turned out to be the places of worship. We
visited four churches in total: two Roman Catholic and two Serbian Orthodox. The most historic
and interesting of the four (from a tourist's perspective) was the
RC cathedral, one of two in Montenegro. Known both as 'Kotor
Cathedral' and 'St Tryphon's Cathedral', it dates from the 12th
century. There was an entry fee of a fairly modest €2.50, which
included access to the treasury.

Turning to the others, St Luke's was also of
medieval construction. Originally built as a Catholic church, it was
later transferred to an Orthodox congregation. St Clara's was
attached to a Catholic monastery, while St Nicholas' was a
20th-century Orthodox church. Its interior had a strong smell of
incense, and I was a little surprised to see a priest conducting an
informal baptism ceremony while tourist visits continued unabated.

St Luke's Church

St Clara's Church

St Nicholas' Church

Bruce had said beforehand that he thought Kotor
could be 'done' in a couple of hours, and sure enough, we decided to
head back to the tender embarkation point after exactly 2hrs in
town. Our transfer back to Royal Princess was on one of the
ship's own tenders. We had a leisurely buffet lunch at Horizon
Court, the highlight of which was a particularly well executed
noodles dish.

It was soon time to head back to our own balcony
in readiness for the spectacular departure from Kotor, retracing the
route through the Gulf of Kotor. The weather had cleared up
beautifully, with the earlier cloud cover now gone and the
bothersome wind noticeably reduced. And indeed it proved to be a
highly scenic passage back out to the Adriatic, including some tight
turns. Hemmed in by mountains for much of the way, there was lots of
potential for echoes. Instead of testing this using the ship's horn,
we put out several blasts of very loud music, each blast consisting
of two phrases from the theme music for the Love Boat TV
series from the 1970s, set aboard a Princess cruise ship. The hills
made a spectacularly good job of playing back the snippet, with a
delay of a few seconds.

By the time we made it back to the open waters of
the Adriatic, still in beautiful weather, it was time to get ready
for cocktails at Crooners and a second successful visit to
Alfredo's Pizzeria.